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Potatoes… - Bayer CropScience

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as far back as 7,000 years ago, when they<br />

were found growing wild in the vicinity of<br />

Lake Titicaca.<br />

With the sole origin of the potato having<br />

been scientifically determined, studies of<br />

its spread to other countries are also of<br />

some interest. It was being grown in Peru<br />

by around the 8th century BC and, according<br />

to chronicler Pedro Cieza de León, a<br />

contemporary of explorer Francisco<br />

Pizarro, the potato was taken to Spain<br />

in 1554 from where it spread throughout<br />

Europe. It reached India in 1610 and<br />

China in 1700.<br />

Worldwide importance<br />

As specified by the FAO, potatoes are of<br />

decisive importance in the diets of hundreds<br />

of millions of people worldwide, and<br />

The potato, with its many different varieties, is a basic<br />

food crop for people in the Peruvian Andes. Peru is<br />

the country in which the genetic diversity of potato<br />

varieties is greatest.<br />

Left: harvesting native potatoes at 4,000 metres<br />

above sea level.<br />

their annual consumption has increased<br />

from under 10 kg per capita in the early<br />

sixties to 21 kg today.<br />

Annual potato production is currently<br />

over 300 million tonnes and billions of<br />

people over the world consume this much<br />

appreciated tuber from the Peruvian<br />

Andes. In this regard, the FAO maintains<br />

that, since the early 60s, the surface area<br />

taken up by potato crops in the developing<br />

world, particularly China and India, has<br />

exceeded that of all other basic foodstuffs,<br />

with the demand in 2020 expected to be<br />

double that of 1993.<br />

Indeed, nowadays there are no countries<br />

where potatoes are not grown. China,<br />

Russia, India, the United States, Ukraine,<br />

Poland and Germany are the leading<br />

producers.<br />

However, although potatoes have played<br />

a fundamental role in relieving hunger on<br />

the planet, they have also been the cause of<br />

famines. From 1845 to 1848, four million<br />

people in Ireland died from hunger and<br />

malnutrition because of Phytophthora<br />

infestans, a terrible disease known as<br />

potato blight, which destroyed all the<br />

country’s crops.<br />

Hub of the potato universe<br />

Peru grows eight native potato species and<br />

2,300 of the nearly 5,000 current potato<br />

varieties. It is also home to 90 of the 200<br />

wild species growing on the American<br />

continent, making it the country with the<br />

greatest potato diversity in the world.<br />

The commercial varieties of potato found<br />

in Peru have curious names: Tomasa,<br />

Canchán, Amarilla, Colorada, Criolla,<br />

Tarmeña, Huamantanga, Peruanita, Perricholi,<br />

etc.<br />

One thing is clear: the potato, with all<br />

its different varieties, is a fundamental food<br />

crop for people in the Peruvian Andes.<br />

The potato is so important for feeding<br />

the world, that the United Nations General<br />

Assembly has declared 2008 the “Inter -<br />

national Year of the Potato”, justly<br />

acknowledging a crop which, although of<br />

local Andean origin and nature, is now part<br />

of our food heritage on a universal scale.<br />

This is the perfect occasion for attention<br />

to be paid to the potato by governments<br />

and the authorities involved in world food<br />

security and for Peru, as its source of<br />

origin, to assume leadership in fostering<br />

its worldwide growth and consumption.<br />

Indeed, the efforts made to promote the<br />

implantation and productivity of this crop,<br />

together with its post-harvesting management<br />

and consumption, will be most<br />

welcome.<br />

In this regard, Peru is privileged to<br />

house the headquarters of the International<br />

Potato Centre, the home of the most comprehensive<br />

genetic bank in the world,<br />

where highly qualified scientists from<br />

Asia, Africa, Europe, America and<br />

Oceania dedicate their lives to investigating<br />

production systems, natural resource<br />

management and crop and genetic resource<br />

enhancement and to preserving and<br />

protecting genetic material related to the<br />

potato and other tubers.<br />

Equally important is the research conducted<br />

at the centre relating to pests and<br />

diseases, use and processing methods, seed<br />

production and potato-related statistics.<br />

A Peruvian project, T´ikapapa, recently<br />

won the first prize in The World Challenge<br />

2007 competition from among 940 other<br />

projects. The contest, sponsored by the<br />

BBC and Newsweek magazine, seeks out<br />

development projects and businesses that<br />

not only make a profit but also put something<br />

back into the community. Making a<br />

difference through enterprise and innovation<br />

at a grass roots level is also a key<br />

requirement.<br />

T´ikapapa is a social marketing concept<br />

enabling resource-poor farmers from the<br />

Peruvian Andes to market their distinctly<br />

labelled native potato crops in Lima’s<br />

supermarkets.<br />

<strong>Bayer</strong> <strong>CropScience</strong> in Peru<br />

<strong>Bayer</strong> <strong>CropScience</strong> has been supporting<br />

these century-old crops in Peru for many<br />

years, with a broad range of high quality<br />

products including fungicides such as<br />

Antracol ® and Fitoraz ® , insecticides such<br />

as Regent ® , Bulldock ® and Alsystin ® and<br />

herbicides such as Sencor ® .<br />

Launches of new solutions are also<br />

being prepared for the future, including a<br />

new portfolio for controlling potato blight<br />

with fungicides such as Sectin ® /Sereno ® ,<br />

Consento ® , Infinito ® and Trivia ® .<br />

All these products also form part of a<br />

campaign to teach farmers how to safely<br />

manage and use crop protection products,<br />

together with application techniques. Run<br />

through the Agrovida ® programme and<br />

Integrated Crop Management at farming<br />

schools, it ensures healthy crops with eco -<br />

nomic profits.<br />

We are faced, then, with a fact and an<br />

opportunity. The fact is the ancestral origin<br />

of the potato, its diversity and its universal<br />

importance. And the opportunity to reinforce<br />

its importance as a foodstuff, enhance<br />

its production and increase its consumption<br />

is provided by the “Inter national Year<br />

of the Potato”. ■<br />

Written by:<br />

Fernando Cillóniz Benavides,<br />

Manuel A. Cueva, Javier A. Chávarro<br />

1/08 COURIER 27

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